Some books can draw you in from the first page and keep you entranced until the last page. This Tender Land is that type of book. Set in the midwestern during the 1930s, we meet a host of characters – some good and some evil. As family historians, reading historical fiction provides us with a look at an era our ancestors lived through. We can gain new perspectives into the challenges they faced. This Tender Land encompasses many sorrows and situations our people may have gone through. It also gives us an excellent example of research and writing.
We’re reading This Tender Land for our Winter 2024 selection in the Family Locket Book Club on Goodreads.
The book begins in 1932 Minnesota with the main characters, Odie and his brother, Albert, attending the Lincoln Indian Training School. Although not Native Americans themselves, the orphan brothers found themselves growing up with children who had been forcibly taken from their parents to give them an education and a better life, supposedly. The book provides a view of these schools that proliferated throughout the U.S. When Odie and Albert have to leave the school after a terrible incident, they take with them two other orphans, Mose, a Sioux, who is mute and communicates with Odie through sign language, and Emmy, a little girl who has lost both her parents in tragic accidents.
The four orphans travel the midwestern landscape by river, heading toward the Mississippi River and St. Louis. Along the way, we meet people impacted by the economic reality of 1932 – a family living in a Hooverville, a group of Protestant Revivalists, and others who are doing their best to survive the tumultuous times. Odie, Albert, Mose, and Emmy respond differently to each situation they encounter in their journey. As the main protagonist, we see the story through Odie’s eyes.
The author of This Tender Land, William Kent Krueger, researched the Great Depression in detail. In the author’s note, he writes:
To create this setting as realistically as possible, I read countless first-person narratives, pored over reams of microfilmed newspapers from the day, and studied the vast photographic records of the time. As much as possible, I tried to hold to the economic and social truths of the period.1
Krueger also walked and explored the rivers that Odie and his companions traversed. As family historians we can follow the same pattern for writing our family stories. We may have few records about our ancestors, but we can seek out other sources to understand the physical and cultural landscape they encountered. Krueger explains influences for writing This Tender Land came from stories his parents told.
My father was a native of Oklahoma. I grew up listening to this stories of the Dust Bowl years, of foraging for wild greens to supplement meals, of watching mud rain from the skies. My mother was born in Ellendale, North Dakota, to a struggling family who could not afford to feed another mouth. At the age of four, she was sent to live with relatives in Wyoming, who eventually adopted and raised her.2
Krueger’s website has photos that inspired the book: the Pipestone Indian Training School, a large Depression Era Hooverville, a farm foreclosure, the Dust Bowl, a tent revival meeting, and more. These photos are a wonderful addition to a study of the book and the era. Also, a reminder to us to seek out photos from historical societies, libraries, and museums for the place and time our ancestors lived. For example, the photo below gives us an idea of the landscape of the Dust Bowl.3
Reading excellent fiction can give us many ideas about researching and writing our own family stories. We don’t have to write full-length books. Instead, we can write short stories, perhaps fictionalizing stories we’ve heard many times. I did this with my Adventures of Cowboy Bob series and gained much insight into my father’s growing-up years. I hope to continue adding context to other ancestor stories!
Best of luck in all your genealogical endeavors!
Sources
- William Kent Kruger, This Tender Land, (New York : Atria, an imprint of Simon and Schuster Inc., 2019), authors note.
- Ibid.
- Mike Goad, “Dust Bowl NRCSTX14001,” retrieved from the USDA image gallery, on 23 August 2016; flicker (https://www.flickr.com : accessed 16 December 2023).
Leave a Reply
Thanks for the note!